These are private notes from controversial questions (ONLY) and not expert opinions that I share public! If you pick qualms, please write a rebuttal, and I will post it right here or send me what you want added or taken out. I am willing to debate anybody. The pictures and videos are from the internet public domain and belong to their owners. If you don’t want them here, advise. My hope is that you will know about life, life after death and eventually meet Christ.

Friday, June 28, 2013

To
answer this question, I will use the bible, common sense, cultures and anatomy. I will use the Bible because there is no perfect human being who can give a perfect set of rules for life like what God has given in the bible. We will use cultures because it is a common problem that is treated differently in different cultures. We will use anatomy to derive inspiration from the growth of the human body. We will use common sense because therein lies sound judgment that has eluded us from specialized knowledge. I
watched a video from Stella Damasus[1]- a Nigerian artist
spitting fire against a bill in favor of men above the age of 18 marrying
brides below the age of 18 that was reintroduced to the senate by Senator Ahmed
Sani Yerima. When 43 years old Senator Yerima was earlier attacked for marrying a 13 year
old Egyptian girl, he replied, “I am
only following Prophet Mohammed's footsteps who married a nine-year-old girl, Aishatu.”[2] Senator
Yerima's position has precedence in the Hadith, the Bible and civil
laws. Muhammad married Aisha when she was six, and he consummated the
marriage when she was 9 (Sahihn Bukhari,
Book 63, Hadith 122).[3] God sanctioned pre-pubescent
marriages (Numbers 31:18).[4]Children and Youth in
History assembled that, in 1880, the lowest Age of Consent in the US
was in Delaware with 7 years. 10 states had it at 12 years, and the rest
had it at 10 years.[5] That
means, none of these sources outlawed child marriages. My task is to show
whether the Bible prescribes the Age of Consent, marriage age, or whether it
does not! It is not to show whether it is morally right or morally wrong
to marry an underage girl. If I say that I like it, people will call me pervert and want me fired, but if I say that I don't like it, they will call me bigot and want me fired. It is Catch 22. Whichever way, someone or everyone wants me fired, anyway. However, it neither means I approve of anything nor does
it state my personal belief. After all, my personal tenet is not doctrine.

There is a
massive outcry now by pedophiles for pedophilia to be legalized now that
homosexuality has been legalized. If we consider homosexuality as an impulsive
behavior or innate urge that must be fulfilled, then perhaps the pedophiles are
right that they are being treated differently. Aren't we an
inclusive society? Well, we have to go all the way with this inclusiveness and diversity thing. May the Lord have mercy!Perusing the evolution of the laws in different countries,[6] customs in the bible, the
Quran and the evolution of the Age of Consent in America and beyond, they may
have sufficient grounds. Pedophile is an insult, but sex with an adolescent is
not! Oh my goodness, this is outrageous! Hold your fire, you little ignorant hypocrite!

What
is pedophilia? It is a sexual desire for a child. Can you define a child biologically? You should pay close attention because I am going to humble you. A child is a person between
birth and puberty. Do you agree? You can consult 100 dictionaries, and all will agree with me. You see, you have been thinking that a child is below 18. Perhaps Damasus may revise her position too because she calls Yerima's wife (who is 13) a child. Senator
Yerima is proposing marriage with adolescent which is “the period begun at
puberty and lasting through the teen years.” (Peterson, 1988). This is the
period between 12-20. Thus, if we are to talk about pedophiles, we would have
talked of the Americans who wedded their children at 7 and 10. In the 19th Century, consensual age was 7 in Delaware and 10 in California. Yes, you read me well! Consequently, the desire for younger girls or younger boys is innate
just like the desire for older women and men. However, the reason why the
Americans decided that way is the definition and application of the term
puberty. Puberty is “the stage of physical development at which one becomes
capable of sexual reproduction.” (Gerow, 1992). In Bolivia, the Age of
Consent is the age of puberty.[7] What age can a
woman put to birth? This will help us to determine the age of puberty and then
compare with the age limits set by the different laws. You can get a drink because we are going for a ride.

I
gleaned through historical pages[8] and saw that on May
14, 1939, in Lima, Peru, Lina Medina was 5 years and seven months when she gave
birth to a boy called Gerardo. On August 19, 1934, in the former Soviet Union
now called Ukraine, Yelizaveta Gryshchenko was 6 years old when she gave birth
to a child, albeit dead. I want you to consider this second to last example
carefully. In India, on June 7, 1932, a girl only known as H was 6 years and
seven months old when she gave birth by cesarean. She had never menstruated and
her breasts were not fully developed, but she still breastfed her baby for 9
months. It is documented in the Island of Calabar, Nigeria that Mum-Zi one of
Chief Akiri’s wives gave birth at age 8 and her daughter also gave birth at age
8, making her the youngest grandmother at age 17. I am spoon-feeding
some of you who are too lazy to read. You should read and be wise.

On
march 10, 2013, 8 year old Sanele Masilela (pictured above) married 61 year old Helen
Shabangu, a mother of five in front of 100 invitees and gatecrashers in Tshwane,South Africaafter the ghost of his grandfather told him to
fulfill his (grandfather’s) crush. The grandfather loved Shabangu, but he died without
marrying her, so he asked his grandson to fulfill his wish, which the family
readily accepted.[9]
What then is the right age to marry or have sex? I
keep hearing people say that "the Bible says, the Bible says," but I
don't think that the Bible makes any prescription on the Age of
Consent. Surprisingly, the same people who say the Bible says have sex out of marriage. The only thing the Bible is clear about sex is illicit sex-fornication, adultery, bestiality, incest, rape and homosexuality! Yeap, you heard me well- HOMOSEXUALITY! The homosexuals do not even have the locus standi to condemn other countries' Age of Consent because the bible is clearer about homosexuality than about the Age of Consent.

There
are three things we must consider: the age approved in the Bible, the age approved by the
custom, and the age approved by law to determine the
right age for someone to marry. The Bible does not state explicitly the marriage
age, but it does so implicitly by an analogical anecdote in Ezekiel 16:4-14. The passage
exposes that the woman was married once her physical features like breasts and
puberty fully developed for love making, "I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew and developed and entered puberty. Your breasts had formed and your hair had grown, yet you were stark naked." By the age of 12, the Israeli woman
was ready for marriage and motherhood. We are left with the last two. The law
varies from country to country. Whose law will be considered superior, and whose will be inferior? In dealing with this, we are faced with
morality against legality. Does it mean that because something is legal it is
moral, or is something illegal if it is immoral? Here is an example.

In
2003, Birita
Mihai, a 15 year old boy married Ana Maria Cioaba, a 12 year old girl in
Bucharest Romania. Many people condemned it on basis that it will instigate
illegal sex amongst minors as if the minors (below 18) in America do not have sex. In 2006, children between 15-19 accounted for half of the 20 million STDs case like gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis. I am not sure that all of them are inherited. Some of
them have more sex than their parents. A question then arises. What about those
girls who lived in Delaware and California where the age of consent was legally
7 and 10 respectively? In some cultures, girls were married off at
age 5, but they will stay at home until puberty before they were transferred to
their groom’s home.Berkowitz
says that:

Before 1889, California’s legal age of consent during the nineteenth century was ten, as in most other states in the Union (in Delaware
it was seven). The state raised it to fourteen in 1889 after a tussle between
Christian pressure groups and male legislators, whose main concern was avoiding
blackmailing schemes by cagey young girls and their families.1

Could
someone's pedophile be actually another person's lover? In
a recent survey, when asked if the Age of Consent should be lowered, 65% said
yes, and 35% said no.[10] That is a landslide majority who want the age of consent lowered. Do you see how many "pedophiles" are in the closets? That is 3/4 of Americans would like to have sex with people lower then 13. That is telling then because with anonymous names they show their true colors. In California and
Delaware, the current age of consent is 18. Does righteousness evolve? If the
age of consent was 7 and 10 for Delaware and California respectfully, and it
has changed now to 18 means that legality sometimes is influenced by culture,
but it does not necessary mean it is sinful or righteous (immoral or moral respectively). Therefore, marriage
takes place when society feels like the woman is able to have sex (age of puberty).

The
right age for marriage or sex is not present in the Bible; thus, using the
bible to defend the theory of underage sex as sinful is merely limited to the
culture because
a child that is underage in one culture may not be underage in another.[11] In some countries,
the age of consent is 12. How then can God be so confused to set the age of
consent as 12 in Mexico, 18 in America; still in America 16, 14 and even 13 in
some states? In other states in the US, if a girl is 14, she could marry with the
permission of her parents. If she marries at 14, it means she is given the
green light to have sex. At that moment, the age of consent is 14. This becomes
a purely cultural standard rather than a biblical standard.

More
over, if we can give a 15 year old life sentence because he or she was tried as
an adult, then we can allow them to act as adults at 15. If a 15 year old is charged as an adult, although she is only 15, then she can have consent at that age. If she cannot have consent at that age, then she cannot form "mens rae" at that age either. Science, psychology and anatomy cannot be subjective. I love Dave
Chappelle's argument on this. Listen:

We
have just seen that their marriage ages vary from culture to culture, even
within a given country, the marriage ages still vary. While in most states in
the US the marriage age for first marriage is 18, in New Hampshire, the
marriage age for first marriage is at least 13 with parental
permission. They say, "Brides must be at least 13 years of age and grooms must be at least 14 years of age before their parents can apply for a judicial waiver."[12] The above citations tell you that girls get married at 13. The question is if they get married at 13, wouldn't they have sex? The minimum age to get married in Kansas is 15. "In
Michigan, if you are 15 or younger, you need both parental and court
approval." In Alabama, a 43 year old married a 14 year old.
This is what "Steve
Giardini, who prosecutes child abuse cases in Mobile County says, "he
can't recall a single time when a man was prosecuted for having sex with a
young teenager when marriage was in the picture, or when the teenager wouldn't
cooperate."[13]
Below that article you will see many marriages with younger brides. I am
talking of Alabama in the USA. Brunei has no minimum age specified.
Perhaps God has forsaken them that he does not care about their age of consent.

We
have shown that women could give birth as early as 6 years old. Therefore,
women could attain puberty at age 5 and above. By implication, pedophilia is
sex between an adult with child from birth until age 5 when puberty starts.
Consequently, the nomenclature does not fit sex between an adult with an
adolescent below 18 years old, since she or he has attained puberty and is ready for
sex because it is not pedophilia. Many say that the child cannot consent
at 16 for sex, but they claim that the same child can consent for sex change at 15. There are states where
children at 15 can have a sex change, and the state will pay for
the treatment.[14]

Unfortunately,
unlike homosexuality which is explicitly prohibited in the Bible, sex with an
adolescent is left open for mankind to determine the Age of Consent. That is
why the age of consent varies from country to country, even in mosaic times.

Just
because someone has a preference for adolescent women or men does not make him
or her a pervert. Some people even apply the term to people with a kaleidoscope
of opinions other than their viewpoints. You may be more perverted than the
individual.

I
remember there were two identical twin sisters attending a church. One of them
was too holy to even deal with other humans, but the other one mingled with
whoever wanted to mingle. Surprisingly, the hermit and recluse was the first to
be pregnant out of wedlock. Psychology teaches us that people who are first to
accuse others of certain hubris do harbor those same weaknesses themselves in
what is called projection. They see the person as a reflection of themselves,
and they don't like it.

How
do people reconcile the fact that in the same country just not too long ago, no
one had a problem with a man having sex with a 7 year old girl in Delaware or
10 year old girl in California, but suddenly some call it
derogatorily, pedophilia? Understand again well; pedophilia is sex between an
adult and a child who has not attained puberty. If the inherent notion
that pedophilia is a disease that can be treated, then homosexuality
too can be treated, since it is considered in the same status as
pedophilia-innate urge.

Furthermore,
30 states have 16 years as Age of Consent and 12 for 18 years. Would those
who have 16 years as marriage age be called perverts, since they will be minors
in those who have it at 18? In Alabama and Indiana, a 14 year old could be
permitted by parents to get married. Wouldn't she have sex
with the 48 year old husband who married her? Would the husband then
become a criminal or pervert? Like in Indonesia, they have 16 years for females
and 19 for males as the ages of consent. This is in the same
country! In Germany, the Age of Consent is 14,
although tweaked a little bit. If you are 14, you can have sex
with someone not older than 20, but you can only be 16 to have sex
with someone older than 20. Is God that confused?

Many
make no rebuttal why in Mexico the Federal Age of Consent is 12; meanwhile, the
same 12 year old Mexican is not majority when she enters into the US. Why is
God that confused? Paul told the Corinthians, " For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints." I Corinthians 14:33. Therefore, God has nothing to do with our ages of consent. Senator Yerima is even adding one year to make it 13 in
Nigeria. Does it mean the Mexicans who wed 12 year olds are perverts? How about
in America where there are states authorizing young people to be married at 14
with parental permission? Would the person marrying the 14 year old with
parental permission be called a pervert, or would the parents be called
perverts? Josephus annotates that Jewish parents gave their daughters in
marriage when they attained puberty. What age again do girls attain puberty?
Would we call those marrying those Jewish girls, perverts?In Georgia, if a man sleeps with a 17 year old, he is law-abiding, but if a teacher sleeps with a 17 year old student, he has broken the law. Does dropping out of school increases the age of the woman? That is the foolishness of human beings.

Why
is it bad when the man sleeps with the same girls in the same age without that
permission, if parents can willfully sign off their 7, 10, 12 or 14 year old
daughters to a man for marriage? If the fact of sleeping with a person below 18
is sickening, then it is, even if there is parental permission. That is the point
I am conveying! Thus, the determinant of the age of consent is more subjective
than objective to form a biblical tenet because of the variances across the
globe. As a result, we should keep the bible out of this one and only deal with it legally and culturally.

Permit
that I give this cultural example. In the Hispanic culture, they celebrate the
quinceanera of their girls. It is a feast when the girl turns 15. It is a
passage into womanhood. It is green-light for her to do the things
that women do; like having sex! What is she becoming a woman for and of?
Wouldn't she be permitted to have sex? Would that still be morally wrong? After
15, she is free to bring in and take out boyfriends. This is below the legal
age in most US states. Would the Mexicans be more sinful then than the
Americans? What about the people of Alabama who allow their daughters to marry at
14 with parental permission?

Many
have argued that the urges in homosexuals are innate, and so are those of
pedophilia. Perhaps it may be psychological to argue that just because
something is innate, it is not licensure to act upon. The superego actually exists
as a check valve to the urges of the ego which desires to tap from the id’s
bank of primitive instincts. However, although the bible does not state the age
of consent, we know in our hearts (conscience) what is right and what is wrong.
We know that at least having sex with a girl below 10 is really legally unacceptable, but it is not morally wrong because God does not say anywhere that it is wrong. We must sync our synderesis with our
syneidesis for better equity.

Those
who claim that God has decided what age to have sex make a mockery of God’s
wisdom. How then can God be so confused to set the age of consent as 12 in
Mexico, 18 in America; still in America 16, 14 and even 13 in some states? In
other states in the US, if a girl is 14, she could marry with the permission of
her parents. In Angola, the age of consent is 12 and Burkina Faso it is 13. In
Japan and China, the consent age is 13 and 14 respectively. In Yemen, a 9 year
old could go to marriage because there is no age of consent. If she goes, it is
expected for her to have sex. In Bolivia, the age of consent is the age of
puberty just as in Yemen. Would this mean that Angola, Burkina Faso, Japan and
China are all countries of perverts and pedophiles? In other words, they don't
know God. Are we then saying that there are some cultures which are more
superior to others? Would those countries with the legal age of consent at 21
be on the side of God, or would those under under 10 be on the side of God? In
other words, all countries with the age of consent at 18 are godly nations as
God has approved their laws? Nay, this will rubbish the wisdom and holiness of
God.

Therefore,
the conclusion is that God neither prescribes the marriage age, nor does He
prescribe the Age of Consent; the society does that! Perhaps it is high time to
elect only godly people so that the laws may mimic the mind of God. Would we
call those who marry with underage girls child molesters? If we do then we are
basing our support on our culture and not theirs since theirs gives it a pass.
If we do, it would mean that our culture is superior to theirs. If not, why would
they emulate your own culture then? It should be noted that it was the
Christians who fought to change the consent age from seven to fourteen in Delaware
and ten to fourteen California. Now that Christianity is being sidelined, we
can expect a lot of bizarre things to happen. Christianity brings with it a
behavior that restraints evil. Islam and Asian religions instead promote child
marriages.This is not agitprop for Christianity; it is merely a historical fact
and reminder. If you are against child marriages and underage
sex, then you must become a Christian! Looking at things like this
should encourage the Bible to be taught in schools because then they will be well enlightened against adolescent sex. Christianity
should be the state religion in America, so that we can use the Bible to
curb this and other sexual vices. Until such time though, it
is difficult to prove from the Bible that
God prescribes an age of Consent. The second part will deal with the marriage age.

At
times in Africa and other oriental societies, when a woman is above 25 years
old, her family starts to pressure her to get married. They fear that she will
not be able to have kids. That belief was founded in the days when there wasn’t
enough breakthrough in medicine; a time when the average age of a woman was 56 years
old.

Marriage
is a bond in blood that is sexually administered. Marriage has three functions
in sequential order: a help-meet or companion (Gen 2:20), multiplication (Gen.
1: 28) and means to avoid fornication (I Cor 7:1-2). If a woman or man has the
means for the upkeep of the household, they should marry. Once God gave Adam
the garden, he brought in Eve. The more reason we have helpmeet. One thing to
note though is that unlike before where household bread winning pinned itself
solely on the man, things and times have changed to a point where more women
are household bread winners than men. Therefore, once the individual
sees the need and has the ability to do that, they should go ahead and marry.

Notwithstanding,
marriage should not be influenced by relatives or society. It should not be
done out of fear too of not finding a partner in the future. Relatives will
apply pressure, especially if you are a woman, underpinning their fears on
menopause. Children should not be the focus of marriage. Children are a
byproduct of the relationship. They are a reward from God.

However,
women have been seen to have kids at age 43 and men even at age 73. If you are
above the childbearing age, you should desire someone with the same orientation
who does not want kids. They are plenty out there! Marriage nowadays does not
really depend on character; meanwhile, it should. People look on character
after one or two failed marriages, but initially they are carried away by the
coolness, beauty or wealth of the individual. That too is a big mistake as it
explains why the many divorces in Hollywood and in Christendom.

One
thing to deal with is loneliness during your bachelor or bachelorette stages. It
is certain that married people are happier than single people.[15] Still, there is a
possibility to keep yourself busy and happy without focusing on the absence of
a husband or wife thereof. You read a lot and do the craft or art you like to
do best. You live your life too as someone who is waiting and preparing for a
spouse. If you are preparing for a spouse, you cannot just sleep around anyhow.
You cannot lick from every pool you can afford or suck from every straw you
meet, subsequently ruining your chances by becoming a mobile STDs depot.

We
may want to brush off why some people are single for a long time. Some suffer
from past hurts that imprison and prevent them from getting married, and others
are in search of Mr. or Ms. Perfect, some suffer from hyperopia- they are
looking too far into the man’s or woman’s wallet that they cannot see their
princess or prince around them. You need self-confidence to believe that you
are beautiful and good for someone else. If you do not feel as if you are good
for someone else, you will not feel free to talk or respond to people with love
interest. Other women and men have been too independent that they do not fancy
being with a man or woman in an attempt to protect their privacy and
independence.

The
laws on child birth that God gave to the Israelites reminded them that they
were born in sin and also that sex was not part of their worship. That was a
major difference between Israel and her heathen neighbors who had sex as part
of their worship to their gods with fertility rites and temple prostitutes. The
strict limits on marriage were to enforce the wholeness and decency of marriage
life. Lev 12.

Nevertheless, singlehood is not a criminal or sinful thing. By Jesus’ singlehood, he showed
that marriage was not an end by itself, nor did it make a person whole. Paul
even takes it further to wish singlehood to all men (I Cor 7:7-8) because it
gave more dedication to the things of the Lord (I Cor 7:9, 36). Marriage is not
a sacrament-means to salvation, it is not a contract –an arrangement made and
fulfilled and could be dissolved by two people; marriage is a covenant- a
sacred blood bond which is sexually administered between a man and a woman
before God. Watch this video[16] and see what a
covenant marriage is all about.

Therefore,
the right age is when the woman attains her flower age (I Cor 7:36). In the
case of adolescent marriage, the law of God is mute, but the laws of different lands speak louder. It would be legally wrong to
marry a 12 year old in America, but it does not make it morally wrong or
legally wrong in other countries because the American law is not the
moral law or international law. This is an adiaphora. Individual consciences become
the executor and legislator of the moral standard because in the absence
thereof of physical law, the law in our hearts takes precedence. The conclusion
then will be that the woman or man can get married when he or she is able to
assume his or her sexual duties in marriage because marriage is a bond in blood
which is sexually administered. Personally, I don't see
why people marry young girls and boys. However, my desire, opinion
or perspective is not moral law. It is just important to know that if the Bible
does not prohibit something, that thing is morally right, albeit, it may not be culturally or and legally right.

“Bonyfish beware because the same net that caught the jawless fish, caught the cartilaginous fish” (Hamilton Ayuk).
Beware earthly paradise seekers because there is a serpent in every paradise"(Hamilton Ayuk).
"It is not how well you know a person; it is how well you treat them that they will live longer and happier with you."
Idle people write, idler people read, and idlest people read and whine that idle people are taking their time (Hamilton Ayuk).

Monday, June 24, 2013

I know this question has really taken
time, but I will do it today. I have often been asked this question, “how do
you compare living your faith in Cameroon and here in the US?” It is usually a tricky
question because it may either arouse nostalgia (on my part) or vitriol on the
part of the listener who may think that I am insulting their Christianity. I
will look at the following four rubrics: evangelism, visitation, supervision and
fellowship.One thing I can tell you is that their churches are well administered. They have that edge over us.

In Cameroon, we preached everywhere. We
stopped at the market, stood on private or public property, took over abandoned
buildings and preached until the owner did no more want us there. However, like
when I was in the University, the owners were happy with me using their abandoned
buildings because I cleared their little evergreen forests. Sometime, people
threw water, others threw oil and others beat us up without even the police intervening.
I remember the case at CRADAT where before I came, a soldier had beaten my guys
and gone away.

In the US, it is very different. You do not
just preach everywhere. You must only stand on a pavement or public property to
preach. You can also stand on your own property or that of someone else with their
permission. Nevertheless, no matter what you preach, no one will attack you
physically; they have to call the police. The police will always side with the
complainer, though.

We were always together.

Another thing you will not easily find
is the presence of a strong university ministry in the US. That is probably why
most of the laws now are tilting towards godlessness. You know like we held
debates on evolution, Islam, Darwinism, Marxism, Freud, Global Warming and other hot topics with non-Christians who wanted
to debate, you will rarely see such a thing in American campuses. It explains why most American Christians cannot sustain a debate without telling you, " I don't want to talk about it." In Africa, superstition sells, but in America the people sell rumors and canards, even when they know it is false, they still refuse to let it go because many churches don't teach their Christians how to debate without being angry. The human being is a rational being; the only being that repents and must do so. In the presence of rationality, there is a kaleidoscope of opinions. Winning the soul
is one thing, keeping the soul is another.

I always stood in this amphitheater of about 500 students to preach.

Sharing bread in the US. it was easier to meet people like this than to invite them to a meeting.

When someone came to church, on that
same day, brothers and sisters fought to make you their friends. They took you
out, some took you to their homes. They did not need to know you. Brother or sister
in Christ meant just that. It did not matter what you did or what sex you were.
One thing I realize in the US is that a brother cannot invite a sister without her
thinking she is going on a date or that it is a date. They will say, “I don’t
even know you.” Hahahaha! That to me is always like, “oh my goodness, these
people are very empty.” It took me time to really understand that part of the
culture, even though I still do it. I invited new people for meals and activities
on the first day and let them decide. I wanted them to feel the warmth of brotherliness. I wanted them to quickly replace the way of the sinners and the scorns of the mockers with the counsel of the godly. In most cases, it worked!

In America, it is difficult for people
to invite you to their house or even integrate you that fast. I had one lady
tell me that she wants to know me more, so I will have do a background check. I
said well, that is easy! Since I am not looking for work and you want it for
your safety, we can do two: one for you and one for me. She began falling fits.
She asked me if I did not trust her. I was baffled. I thought it was a time to
expose our backgrounds. If someone was looking
for an employment or to minister in church, that is understandable, but a
brother who just greets you and invites you out for brotherliness should not be
subjected to a background check. Hahahaha. America!

Visiting Brethren in their homes was our responsibility as leaders.

Oh, the men always say, “I love you
brother, no homo.” When I heard “no homo,” methought it was short form of Homo sapiens. I have been hearing it and did not like it because of the way I understood
it. I thought it meant something like, “I love you but not as a human being.” So
one day when one brother said it again, I asked him to explain what exactly he
meant. He explained that he meant that he does not love me as a homosexual.
That is not something that will even cross my mind. If people kept seeing the
same brothers together, they inferred that their homo thing. I preferred to
invite sisters or hang around the sisters and save me the tag of homo. I remember
I was trying to hook up a sister with a brother in Christ one day when the sister told me that she does not do men. The first alternative
that came to my mind was animal. So I said, “you don’t do men; what type of animals do you do’?
She looked at me and smiled. Then she took
time to explain to me.

Unlike in America, we had a good follow-up
system as young converts were given to someone whose task was assisting the
young convert, praying with them, visiting them and integrating them into the
church. I went to one church for 6 months, but no one even knew where I lived. Even though
I did not really need it as an old Christian, but as a visitor to the church,
it should have been the church’s obligation. I could only invite the brothers
or pastor out for a meal, but it was difficult to ask if a sister wanted to
hang out with you all. Their minds always went to dating, and they will tell
you, “Oh thanks, I have a boyfriend.” Hahahaha. This leads us to the last point
fellowship.

University Students retreat.

When sisters were passing around my
house in Cameroon, they will stop and knock. If I was in, they came in, we shared the scripture while we ate and drank the little I could afford. If I did not have much but had some money, I took them to
the restaurant and we ate. I never get that in the US. The individualism in the society is despicable and of monumental proportions. In Cameroon, sometimes we
went to evangelize and then just slept in a sister’s house. No one thought of rape
or abusing the sister. In the US, the people seem to an extent suffering from
psychosis because they always think that a man meeting a woman will result to
some abuse on the woman. I don’t know why they think that way.

I don’t understand where they keep their
morals and their faith. I have never
heard a sister tell a brother to pass by her house for meal or say things like
come and ride with me. When they are going to the same meeting, living in the
same place, they drive different vehicles. Sometimes I ask myself why life is
so artificial in the US. I remember how every day I had visitors in my hostels.
People just came and prayed, sang and studied the scripture. In all my 13 years
of doing that practice, we never heard or had one bad experience of sexual abuse of any sort. Now
that the world is a small village, perhaps those mores have changed. There are Christians in America who spend more
than a month without receiving a single visit from a brother or sister in Christ. Christians don't have time to visit people, but they have time to sit on TV or computer for three hours. The men play video games. I do it too! I sit for 4 hours on fight nights and when my neighbor comes, I ask him if he wants to watch or leave because I want to watch fights. When he is gone, I repent to God and then the next fight, I am at it again. What type of fellowship is that? Did you know that many American Christians can spend a year without ever sharing the gospel with their neighbors? Some don't even know them. Perhaps that explains the high rate of drug addiction as a coping mechanism and divorce amongst Christians. Many think that fellowship is only
coming to church and singing. In Cameroon, we made sure that everyone visited somebody before
the week came to an end.

Henriette the only girl visiting on this day knew she was in good company.

However, because of the dynamics of each
culture, the people are satisfied with the way their churches function. If whatever
they do is blessing the members, then it needs no change.

Until
then, I believe they can take some things from us, and we take some things from
them to make the journey easier.

Saint
Arrey of Ntenako.

“Bonyfish beware because the same net that caught the jawless fish, caught the cartilaginous fish” (Hamilton Ayuk).
Beware earthly paradise seekers because there is a serpent in every paradise"(Hamilton Ayuk).
"It is not how well you know a person; it is how well you treat them that they will live longer and happier with you."
Idle people write, idler people read, and idlest people read and whine that idle people are taking their time (Hamilton Ayuk).

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